Paul Stapleton, Managing Director of NIE Networks talks to Owen McQuade about the challenges in running an electricity network business and how the grid is facilitating the transition to a low carbon energy future. NIE Networks operate the electricity distribution network in Northern Ireland. It is an extensive network of 47,000 km with around 300...

Head of Energy Strategy Division in the Department for the Economy, Joe Reynolds, discusses the challenges facing the development of a future energy strategy for Northern Ireland and the trends affecting its perceived outcomes. Contextualising energy policy in Northern Ireland as being currently caught between the 2010 Strategic Energy Framework and the development of a...

Katy Hayward of Queen’s University Belfast offers her reflections on Brexit, borders and their potential impacts on criminal justice co-operation in Ireland. Opening her presentation, Hayward suggests that many questions remain unresolved in relation to the impact of Brexit on security and criminal justice cooperation in Ireland. Indeed, throughout her analysis she notes that the...

Paul Wickens, Chief Executive of Enterprise Shared Services (ESS) for the Northern Ireland Civil Service (NICS), discusses the journey of digital government in Northern Ireland to date and offers some insight on the future roadmap of three new key strategies. Paul Wickens outlines that a lot has changed since the original concept of nidirect and...

Northern Ireland third in GCSE results

Northern Ireland is not the best performing region for GCSEs, according to official statistics analysed by agendaNi. Five passes at grades A*-C (including English and maths) is the standard measure of success.

Finalised statistics for 2013 show that this was attained by 60.9 per cent of pupils taking the exams in Northern Ireland. This was behind South East England (62.5 per cent) and London (65.1 per cent) based on figures published by the Department for Education at www.gov.uk.dfe

The province is regularly described as having the best results in the UK but a full four-nation comparison is not possible as Scotland has a separate system (standard grades). The North East and the East Midlands were the lowest performing English regions – both on 59.3 per cent – while Wales was lowest overall on 52.7 per cent.

London’s affluent suburbs have traditionally had a high performance. The London Challenge programme has increased GCSE pass rates from 40 per cent to 63 per cent in the inner city boroughs over the last decade. This involves assigning experienced advisers to schools who perform an audit and link them into a city-wide network of schools which can share best practice.

GCSEs are to be retained in England, Wales and Northern Ireland for the foreseeable future although England is moving towards a more linear route while the other jurisdictions are retaining modular courses.